A DOCTOR sexually assaulted his patient at the John Radcliffe Hospital after she rushed to A & E coughing up blood, a court heard.

Oxford Crown Court heard yesterday how the alleged victim, a Romanian woman aged in her 20s, was told by Anandagopal Srinivasan during the incident that he was a doctor and a doctor knows best.

The 27-year old of Sandfield Road, Oxford, denies two charges - assault by penetration and sexual assault, arising from two incidents alleged to have been carried out on two victims at two hospitals - one in Oxford and one in Cambridge.

Outlining the case against Srinivasan at the start of his trial yesterday prosecutor Matthew Walsh told the court: "This is a case which involves two separate and unconnected women making complaints of this defendant sexually assaulting them.

"Though they are separate and unconnected the context of both allegations is quite similar.

"Both women were patients in a hospital and were being examined by this defendant in his role as a medical practitioner - a trainee doctor."

He said that Srinivasan sexually assaulted his first alleged victim at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge in October 2014.

In that assault, jurors were told, a woman was admitted with 'severe abdominal pain' before Srinivasan went on to examine her.

It was there while alone and in a curtained bay, Mr Walsh said, that Srinivasan lifted up the woman's top and stared at her breasts, making the alleged victim feel 'extremely uncomfortable' before applying a stethoscope to her chest.

Detailing the second incident in October 2016, prosecutors said that it was at the A & E department at Oxford's John Radcliffe Hospital that a women turned up complaining of stomach pains, having coughed up blood that morning.

While there she was led into an examination room together with her friend, when Srinivasan started to examine her.

The court heard that the doctor first touched her inappropriately before later performing a sex act on her, all while the patient's friend was still in the room.

Taking to the witness box at the trial yesterday the alleged victim - who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that the ordeal made her feel 'uncomfortable and dirty'.

Speaking with the aid of a Romanian interpreter she told jurors of the first alleged incident of touching: "I was just thinking that this might be the way [for] an examination. [My friend] was embarrassed and she turned her back to us.

"He was looking in my eyes. It made me feel uncomfortable."

She told the court that she was touched sexually by the doctor for up to 15 minutes before he stopped and tried unsuccessfully to take a blood sample from her.

After a second doctor came and left, she told the court, Srinivasan then carried out a sex act on her and 'pushed' a tampon she was using further inside her with his finger during the attack.

Asked if Srinivasan told her what he was going to do during the examination she answered: "No, he just said to me that he is a doctor and he knows better what to do."

She went on to tell jurors that once the alleged ordeal came to an end Srinivasan left the room and the woman felt 'very upset and nervous' before telling her friend and staff about what she claimed had happened.

Asked during cross examination by defence barrister Anthony Haycroft if she had tried to push the doctor away during the alleged attack she answered: "No, because I have not been a to a gynaecologist before and I thought this is how the examination should be."

She added that she had not been to any hospital since the alleged incident.

Mr Haycroft put to the woman that the examination had only been centred around her stomach and not her vaginal area, an assertion she denied.

Srinivasan denies the two counts and the trial - expected to last seven days, continues.